Being a Mummy

Being a Mummy

Back at their vacation home, Shannon tells Al that he need not bother with going through the Sphinx, seeing as she’s got a sarcophagus of her own. During her travels, Shannon looted several fragments of various traps. For example, she has a few Pushable Statue fragments, and a few Dive Well fragments. When a Sim collects five fragments of the same type, they can be interacted with in the inventory with a “Reconstruct” command. The fragments are consumed but the house gets whatever object the fragments represented. Once reconstructed, the object can be placed in inventories to be moved around as if it was any other object.

So, Shannon reconstructs her sarcophagus and invites Al to sleep in it. What she fails to tell him is that her sarcophagus isn’t a Blessed Sarcophagus of Kings… it’s a Cursed Sarcophagus of Kings! (Al probably should have been able to tell that from the black onyx color of the sarcophagus and relief.) Al goes ahead and sleeps in it… but when he comes out, he’s turned into a mummy!

Being a mummy isn’t all bad. Al’s Energy and Bladder meters are always topped off. Although the lack of needing to go to the bathroom is good, being able to stay up all day and night is even better. Further, Al will live a lot longer than his fellow Sims, about five times as long! Al also can do pretty much anything a normal Sim can do. They can even Woo Hoo, though they cannot procreate.

Now, onto the bad. Mummies tend to break things a little more often than normal Sims. Their bandages are cloth, which means they are more flammable near anything (especially fireplaces), and their bandages absorb water, which makes them drip after showers. This isn’t a huge deal, but they make puddles as walk around, which can bring down moods by activating the Dirty Surroundings debuff on other Sims. Finally, mummies walk around VVVEEERRRYYY SSSLLLOOOWWWLLLYYY. It’s annoying and takes them forever to get anywhere of consequence.

Is it worth the tradeoff for mummies? Mummies are definitely great babysitters, able to work with a baby’s or toddler’s schedule to make sure he is well-fed and taken care of, and quickly trained up in walking, talking, and potty training. They can gain their skills nonstop to get promoted up their careers pretty quickly. However, their slow speeds, frequent puddles, and increased mortality are all problems that might annoy you. Their slow speeds, in fact, pretty much guarantee they are worthless in adventuring.

I personally believe that mummies, in general, are not worth always having around your player-controlled families; but, having a couple in your neighborhood adds some great variety, and it might be useful for some Sims to be mummies for a short while in their lives. Oh, and the mummy’s special dance? Just plain awesome.

Once a Sim is a mummy, it can be reversed using the same methods mentioned above: being kissed by a King Cobra or sleeping in a Blessed Sarcophagus of Kings (and there is always one in the bottom of the Sphinx tomb) will reverse the mummy status and return the Sim to normal.